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Objective: Telepresence may play a fundamental role in establishing authentic interactions and relationships in online psychological interventions and can be measured by the Telepresence in Videoconference Scale (TVS), which was validated only with patients to date. This post hoc study aimed to validate the Italian version of the TVS with mental health professionals. Method: The Italian TVS was included in an online survey, whose primary aim was to assess the experiences of Italian psychologists and psychotherapists with online interventions during the first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic and was filled in by 296 participants (83.4% females, mean age = 42 years old). Results: Exploratory factor analysis supported the original factor structure only partially because the scale 'Absorption' (i.e., the feeling of losing track of time), as it was formulated, did not measure telepresence. Correlations were also explored between the TVS scales and some survey items pertaining to intimacy and emotional closeness to patients, comfort and positive as well as negative experiences with online interventions. Conclusion: The TVS may be a useful tool to measure physical and social telepresence in online interventions, both in patients and in professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed at investigating which sources of social support best account for pregnant women's levels of psychological distress and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. 274 Italian and Canadian expectant mothers completed an online-based survey including measures of perceived social support (from family, significant other and friends), state anxiety, depressive symptoms, and satisfaction with life. Correlation analyses and amultivariate analysis of covariance were performed to explore how social support from different sources was related to depressive symptoms, state anxiety and satisfaction with life. Different sources of social support contributed to explaining women's psychological distress and mental well-being. Social support both from family and friends was significantly related to women's state anxiety and depressive symptoms. Social support from friends was specifically related to women's satisfaction with life. Our findings endorse the crucial role of perceived social support as a protective factor for pregnant women's mental health. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, our results suggest that support from family seems important in preventing psychological distress, whereas support from friends is also associated with mental well-being. These results may help designing future interventions aimed at improving women's perinatal mental health in life-threatening conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal ornaments are widely viewed as indicators of social identity and personhood. Ornaments are ubiquitous from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene, but they are most often found as isolated objects within archaeological assemblages without direct evidence on how they were displayed. This article presents a detailed record of the ornaments found in direct association with an Early Mesolithic buried female infant discovered in 2017 at the site of Arma Veirana (Liguria, Italy). It uses microscopic, 3D, and positional analyses of the ornaments as well as a preliminary perforation experiment to document how they were perforated, used, and what led to their deposit as part of the infant's grave goods. This study provides important information on the use of beads in the Early Mesolithic, in general, as well as the relationship between beads and young subadults, in particular. The results of the study suggest that the beads were worn by members of the infant's community for a considerable period before they were sewn onto a sling, possibly used to keep the infant close to the parents while allowing their mobility, as seen in some modern forager groups. The baby was then likely buried in this sling to avoid reusing the beads that had failed to protect her or simply to create a lasting connection between the deceased infant and her community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constrained by the Maritime Alps and a steep coastal shelf, Liguria served as a biogeographic corridor linking mainland Western Europe to peninsular Italy throughout the Late Pleistocene. It may also have served as a biogeographic refugium for Neanderthals, since sites in the region have yielded some of the latest Mousterian dates in Western Europe and, paradoxically, some of the earliest dates for Protoaurignacian occupations. This paper presents an overview of the Neanderthal presence in Liguria between Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 and MIS 3, with a particular focus on the record from the Balzi Rossi site complex. This permits a critical evaluation of diachronic shifts in the Neanderthal occupation of Liguria. This is followed by an analysis of new data from 'semi‐sterile Mousterian' Level MS at Riparo Bombrini that show it was occupied very ephemerally by the end of the Mousterian, highlighting major late Neanderthal behavioral shifts. We conclude by proposing that this behavioral pattern is best explained by the last Neanderthals of the Balzi Rossi having occupied the region as an ecologically stable, taxon‐specific in situ micro‐refugium. This has implications for our understanding of Paleolithic refugia more broadly and of the social and ecological conditions in place during the terminal Mousterian period in western Liguria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution and development of human mortuary behaviors is of enormous cultural significance. Here we report a richly-decorated young infant burial (AVH-1) from Arma Veirana (Liguria, northwestern Italy) that is directly dated to 10,211–9910 cal BP (95.4% probability), placing it within the early Holocene and therefore attributable to the early Mesolithic, a cultural period from which well-documented burials are exceedingly rare. Virtual dental histology, proteomics, and aDNA indicate that the infant was a 40–50 days old female. Associated artifacts indicate significant material and emotional investment in the child's interment. The detailed biological profile of AVH-1 establishes the child as the earliest European near-neonate documented to be female. The Arma Veirana burial thus provides insight into sex/gender-based social status, funerary treatment, and the attribution of personhood to the youngest individuals among prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups and adds substantially to the scant data on mortuary practices from an important period in prehistory shortly following the end of the last Ice Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human adaptation to climatic variations is being discussed at different scales and from diverse perspectives and specializations in Paleolithic archaeology. We suggest examining human mobility on the local scale through the faunal record to better understand human-environmental interactions during the early dispersal of anatomically modern humans along the Mediterranean coast. Riparo Bombrini is located in the renowned Balzi Rossi complex in Northwest Italy. The site offers an excellent opportunity to compare two distinct Protoaurignacian levels yielding well-documented and well-dated deposits. Previous studies of spatial, lithic, and raw material data from these two Protoaurignacian levels have revealed distinct mobility signatures as well as undeniable evidence for the resilience of the Protoaurignacian technocomplex during episodes of climatic instability including the HE4 event, circa 40ka cal BP. The highly fragmented nature of the animal bones at the site warrants the application of the ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) collagen fingerprinting technique. For this research we carried out taphonomic and archaeozoological analyses with integrated systematic ZooMS using a mass sampling strategy. The results suggest stability in hunting strategies over time in spite of the apparent shift in mobility strategies from level A2 to level A1 at Riparo Bombrini. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bartolomeo Benincasa (1746-1816), translator from French and German, polymath and journalist, occupied the function of Chief Censor of the Illyrian Provinces in Laybach (Ljubljana) for 13 months between 1810 and 1811. While exercising this function, he made good use of the experience he gained from his earlier collaboration with Vincenzo Dandolo, superintendent from 1806 to 1809 of Dalmatia, which had been annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. Benincasa's role as censor marked the end of a long career in which he had also been active as a (political) journalist, starting in 1797 and, after a short pause, again in 1803. The present article, which draws on the archives of the Chief Censor's Office held at the Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica in Ljubljana, shows the wide range of activities which Benincasa was involved in during his time in the administration of the Illyrian Provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the prose literary texts in Italy. It highlights the engagement of the prose literary texts on the society's labor and work while arguing the rights of the migrants to work and achieve their citizenship under the Italian Constitution. Also emphasized are the condition of Italy as one of the traditional out-migration countries across Southern Europe, its history of global capitalism and the country's transformation as a destination country.

An essay is presented on Italian geophilosophies of the Mediterranean. It offers the several rationales of various Italian writers regarding the subject such as Massimo Cacciari, Franco Cassano, and Mario Alcaro mentioning that Cassano considers Mediterranean as subject of discourse and self-determination. It explores of the works of various writers related to Italian geophilosophies of the Mediterranean such as the orientalism work of Edward Said.

A literary criticism of the novel "Il Sorriso Dell'ignoto Marinaio," by Vincenzo Consolo is presented. It explores the role of the novel in rewriting the tradition of the historical novels on the Risorgimento including "Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis," by Foscolo and "Il Gattopardo," by Lampedusa. It cites the way it situates in the context of woman's history in Italy and explains that the novel gives a revisionist account of genre, gender, and nation.

This article focuses on the rituals of nation building and state formation that were staged in 1961 when the city of Turin, the first capital of the newly formed Italian state (1861-1863), was chosen as the official site of commemorations of the centenary of unification. Under the leadership of the ruling Christian Democrat party (DG) and thanks to the instrumental role of FIAT, Italy's leading auto-mobile industry, a large historical exhibit, or Mostra Storica, was displayed in the halls of Palazzo Carignano and several new buildings were erected in an area named Italia '61, notably nineteen Padiglioni Regionali, Padiglione Unitario, Palazzo del Lavoro, Palazzo Vela, the Circarama theatre and the Alweg monorail. While the spaces of Italia '61 sought to project an image of Italy's 'rightful' position within the powers of the Free Western World that closely reflected the political and economic vision of the DG and FIAT, the commemorations ultimately could not hide the increased fragmentation of the Italian national body to the point where, by the 1970s, even the existence of the democratic republic would be put in serious danger by the rise of left- and right-wing extremist terrorist activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the Italian literature during the post-Risorgimento era in Sicily, Italy. Origin of the word Risorgimento; Excerpts from the book "Da Quarto al Volturn: Noterelle di uno dei Mille," by Giuseppe Cesare Abba; Factors that ignited uprisings in Sicily after the Unification of Italy; Literary works of Sicilian authors that served as a critique of Risorgimento, including the book "I Malavoglia," by Giovanni Verga.